Re: Old Japanese
| From: | Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, November 9, 2000, 18:37 |
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On Thu, 9 Nov 2000 10:30:05 -0500, Jeff Jones <jeffsjones@...>
wrote:
> IIRC, the proposed sound changes were all
>reasonable, but there weren't enough examples of each to show regular
>correspondences.
Last time I had the opportunity to check Starostin's Altaic databases
on my own computer, they were approaching 3,000 Proto-Altaic roots
attested in no less than *three subfamilies* each (the subfamilies
being: Turkic, Mongolian, Tungus-Manchu, Korean, Japanese-Ryukyuan).
...Implying that the substantiation for Altaic is now only slightly
*better* than for Indo-European (statistically...).
IIRC about one half of such roots were represented in Old Japanese,
including a considerable portion of the Swadesh list.
Basilius